Three men and a horse

For the first half-hour you can't imagine how Seabiscuit is ever going to get out from under the truly awful ideas that writer-director Gary Ross has inflicted on it. Ross, whose last film was the clumsily sentimental fable Pleasantville, begins by giving a mythic overlay to the story of the celebrated Depression-era racehorse, an unlikely champion because of his puny size and his early rebellious nature.